A communication planis an outline of how you'll communicate vital, ongoing project information to key stakeholders in project management. Your communication plan will assist your team in determining who should get which notifications and when project stakeholders should be notified. You'll define which channels stakeholders should use and when in your communication plan, as well as how frequently different details should be delivered and who is responsible for each channel.
A solid communication strategy can assist you in communicating the correct information to the appropriate project stakeholders. Executive stakeholders may not need to be informed on every project detail, and project team members may not need to participate in a conference call with external partners. You may reduce the guessing game and unblock your team by stating where and how you'll communicate.
Less App Switching
We recently surveyed over 13,000 worldwide knowledge workers and discovered that the average knowledge worker uses up to 25 apps each day. Knowledge workers spend hours trying to find out where they should be communicating instead of focusing on high-impact work or even working successfully with their team members.
This guessing game can be eliminated with a communication plan. If your team knows that you only talk about work in a work management platform, they may look for important information there rather than sifting through document files, Slackchats, and several email threads. Similarly, if you know a team member is only marginally involved in the project—and is only updated during high-level status reports—you won't bother them with a question regarding the next project deliverable's due date.
Increased Collaboration
Team collaboration isn't an automatic procedure; it's a skill that you and your colleagues must cultivate. Clarifying your team's communication standards is one component of building efficient team collaboration. That's because, especially if you work on a remote or distributed team, feeling comfortable talking is a major roadblock to efficient collaboration. If your staff is confused about how or where to interact, they won't feel completely at ease chatting to one another.
Your communication plan gives you the opportunity to specify how and where team members should communicate. You may also include when team members should communicate—and team conventions for setting "Do not disturb" mode or snoozing notifications—depending on the amount of granularity.
Less Duplicative Work
Knowledge workers currently spend 60% of their time on job-related activities like as searching for papers, pursuing approvals, switching between apps, following up on work progress, and other activities that divert time away from productive work. Uncertainty over where things should be communicated is a part of this work concerning work.
If team members don't know where information is shared—things like your project strategy or project timeline—they'll have to sift through various tools or ask multiple team members just to discover what they need. As a result, team members who are unsure where they should communicate concerning work have a more difficult time just discovering existing work.
What Is A Communication Plan Example?
A strategy for disseminating the information required to execute a task. A communication plan for a budget process that involves numerous teams, for example. This establishes a framework for meetings and documentation across an organization.
What Is A Simple Communication Plan?
Begin with a one-sentence statement that explains what the change is, how it will benefit people, and who will benefit. It's a strict limit of 25 words or less. Put it in italics, quotations, bolded, boxed, or some other method to make it stand out at the top of page one. This one line is the raison d'être of your endeavor, and it will help you stay focused as you construct your strategy.
After that, there's a brief explanation of what caused the shift. It could be the evolving needs of a key target market, a new type of technology that can be used to your company, or another endeavor that will fill a market niche you've found.
Use energetic speaking and straightforward English to keep it short and punchy. Try to keep it to three paragraphs with no more than three sentences each paragraph – if it goes longer, do some serious editing and reduce it down – and then file it under a heading like Scenario analysis or present situation.
What Is Strategic Communication Plan?
A strategic communication plan is a written document that outlines how you will communicate with your team about your organization's goals. This approach is well-thought-out, with messaging and techniques aimed at engaging people in your strategy and boosting your company's performance.
Paul Niven describes common objectives and critical factors for building an internal communication strategy in his book Balanced Scorecard: Step-By-Step for Government and Nonprofit Agencies. We'll walk you through both—and then give you a four-step plan to help you articulate your strategy more effectively.